Immigration racket busted at IGI

An immigration racket operating from the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport has been unearthed with the arrests of a trio using fake immigration stamps to fly overseas on a connecting domestic flight, police said on Sunday.

An immigration racket operating from the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport has been unearthed with the arrests of a trio using fake immigration stamps to fly overseas on a connecting domestic flight, police said on Sunday.

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According to the police, the operation came to light after a Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) official intercepted a passenger carrying fake security stamps of the Bureau of Immigration and Air India minutes before boarding an Air India flight to Canada via Amritsar on Saturday night.

“At about 11.15pm, Kulwant Singh, 46, was intercepted with a conspicuous bulge in his pocket. When told to produce the items in his pocket, five rubber stamps belonging to the Bureau of Immigration and Air India were retrieved,” said a senior CISF official.

On enquiry from both the organisations — Bureau of Immigration and Air India’s security wing — the CISF official learned that the stamps were ‘fake and forged’ and were no longer in use by either agency.

Following this, Singh, who was to board an AI 014 flight scheduled for 1am to Amritsar, was whisked away for questioning.

It was then that he revealed that two of his associates — later identified as Raj Kumar, 36 and Dalvinder Singh Lidhar, 46 — had already got their security check done and were waiting for him in the departure lounge.

While both Kulwant and Dalvinder hail from Jalandhar, Raj resides in west Delhi’s Paschim Vihar. Together, police claimed, the trio had expected to get smooth passage to Canada by using the fake stamps during passport and visa checking.

“During interrogation, Kulwant told us that Dalvinder had promised him a job and accommodation in Canada for which he had paid R20 lakh to the latter.

Dalvinder was the one who had handed over five forged stamps to Kulwant in a restroom, just before the security check,” the officer said.

The CISF handed over the trio to the Delhi Police, which has charged them under sections 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery), 471 (use of forged document as genuine) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.